Author's note at bottom.

Disclaimer: I do not own Danny Phantom or the song 'Young God' by Halsey.

And I've been sitting at the bottom of a swimming pool

For a while now, drowning my thoughts out with the sounds

I Walk the Line: Jazz! Pt. I

Word count: 4,117

3/18/16

October 3rd, 2014

Friday

Amtrak Station - St. Louis

8:10 p.m.

"Jazz!" Sam exclaimed as she looked at the sign that now laid on the floor of the building; forgotten in extensive hug Danny was giving her. "That sign's not exactly accurate." A low blush coated her cheeks.

"What sign?" Danny asked and put Jazz back on the ground. When he glanced down and read what Jazz had written about Sam, his cheeks immediately flamed and he tried to speak but only small blathering sounds came out making Tucker laugh.

Jazz only rolled her eyes and picked her sign back up. "I had actually written 'sister' originally but then I decided that 'in-law' works just as well.

"We only just started dating two weeks ago!" Danny gets out.

Jazz snorted and began leading them towards the doors that would lead them to the parking lot. "And if you both hadn't been so stubborn you could have been together since you were 15."

Sam sighs and shares a quick glance at Danny who is giving off waves of nervousness towards her. "Let's just get past this first year."

"Well, I thought it was great! They're just being stubborn." Tucker says as he slips up to walk next to Jazz.

She laughed and gave him a side hug, "Thanks."

Danny and Sam only rolled their eyes in response. When they arrived at Jazz's car they loaded up and started on their way back to the Wash U. campus.

"Alright, do you wanna go out tonight or tomorrow for your birthday, Danny?" Jazz asked once she had pulled out of the parking lot and was on a regular street.

"Definitely tomorrow. Could we just order a couple of pizza's tonight and just stay in?"

"Long night?" Jazz looked over at him in his position in the passenger seat.

"Yes." He laid his head on the window.

"I want to check that cut when we get up to Jazz's room." Sam said, "To make sure if we need to pull the stitches out or not. You used the regular stitching right?"

"Yeah."

"Alright, we'll need to make sure that your skin hasn't started healing over it, yet."

The trio expected Jazz to be very vocal about hearing that Danny had gotten a cut, but she surprisingly or rather unsurprisingly skipped to the big topic of the past week. "You have to tell me about Charlie. Sam's already texted me a bit of information but nothing much. What's happened this past week? I need details!"

The first tell her about the meeting the boys had with Charlie. She quite enjoyed the fact that they scared him a little bit.

"You guys need to play nice with him at least a little bit. But still show him that Sam doesn't belong to him."

"Me and Danny were actually thinking of taking him out for a regular night, with Sam, and see what he thinks of Amity Park when he's not being harbored in Sam's house. And then Sam will get up to go to the bathroom or something and then we'll warn him that if he hurts her he'll with he never agreed to this."

"You guys!" Jazz immediately reprimanded and Danny hadn't realized he actually missed that tone in her voice, until this moment. "You need to be careful when doing that because of the power card he holds."

"We will." Both of them answer.

Then they inform her of the picture that appeared on Wednesday and the tabloid headline about Phantom and Sam dating. Jazz was immediately confused because she hadn't heard anything about it. But she admitted to being incredibly busy the past week getting used to school and a job in the library.

So they tell her everything as they make it back to Wash U. and make their way up to Jazz's room. From Paulina slapping Sam, to showing Jazz the picture and the physical fight that Paulina and Sam had gotten into. Plus all their information they found on the picture, the discussion with the GIW and Danny and Tucker getting the fight on Thursday and lastly about Ida knowing the truth about Danny and all of their late night activities and what Sam's parents thought on the matter.

"Well, I'm not shocked that Ida knows. It's like when I found out. I've suspected for a while that she's known, happy to know that I was correct. Now, about the fighting." Jazz starts as she sits on her bed and while the trio started to make up a bed for themselves on her floor. "I understand that it must have been a bit built up from the past week from what you've told me, but that does not mean that you condone their fights." She sighed and leaned heavily back on her hands.

"And we most definitely can't let the GIW get Sam or Danny. But they'll probably try and use Sam as bait to get to you, Danny. Which of course would work."

The each admit that they hadn't actually thought of that. They're all just so happy that they have Jazz sometimes because their minds have been going a mile a minute and it's nice to have that outside person. But they kind of want to take a break from the last week at the moment.

"How have your classes and stuff been going?" Sam asked, fixing the large quilt overtop the mattress topper Jazz was letting them use and the folded up second quilt. They had laid out the mattress topper horizontally that way when they went to sleep their top halves would at least be on it, and they used Jazz's two heavy quilts she brought from home to lay their lower halves on.

"Good. I have to get all of my basic requirements out of the way before I can dive into the really cool things I want to study – mainly because they need prerequisites. But I love both of my psych classes. And Calc I is kind of hard but I go to the study hours that the TA holds and work with her on it. And Chem and English 1000 are extremely easy, but once those are out of the way I can go into the harder classes."

"How many math classes do you have to take?" Danny questioned finally taking a seat beside her on the bed.

"Only a couple more and then I'll be good to go. I just have to make sure I get a C or higher in each of them to move on, on schedule. And besides that I've taken up a job at the library, which is nice because I do love being around my books and I can still get my homework done with I'm there. But I've spoken with my RA and I've been thinking that once next year comes around that I want to be an RA. The school also pays for my room and board and half of my meal plan for next year which would cut down on my expenses. And then I joined a book club and we meet twice a month to discuss the book and kind of just chit-chat too."

Danny felt incredible pride that his sister was fitting in already. "I'm so happy that you're having such a great time." At least if one of them got to go, they should enjoy it while it lasts.

"Thanks, little brother." She smiled at him and ruffled his hair. He pretended to not like it, but really he loved it when she did that. "Have you guys registered to take your ACT's yet?"

"No." The trio answered simultaneously.

"You guys!" Jazz chides and they all feel a spark of guilt run through them. "You need to do it soon so you can have time just in case you need to take it again. And start applying early to colleges."

"I'll make a note on Carol." Tucker says and typed out a note on his IPhone. As he does Jazz received a call on her phone informing her that the pizza man was downstairs. She and Sam made their way downstairs to grab the regular and vegan pizza before heading back upstairs to her room.

When they get back up and everybody has their slices Jazz asked, "I've waited long enough. But I want to see the bracelet and what you gave Sam, Danny." She looked excitedly between them both. "Sam already sent me a picture of them both but I want to see them in person." She held out her hands, her fingers twitching for the pieces.

Sam and Danny laughed but took off their bracelet and necklace and handed them over to her to look over. As she goes over each of them the trio ate and watched as her eyes focused on the detail that Danny took when making the moon and star.

"I really like them both." She finally said and handed them both back to their owner. "You're extremely talented with your ice now, Danny. You should think about selling some pieces. You know ice sculptures and figurines and whatnot."

"I could." He shrugged, "But it's ice. What would I tell people that it's made out of since it doesn't melt?"

"Well, it looks enough like glass that you could probably just say that their made by glass blowing."

"You think that would work?" Tucker asked looking at Sam's necklace along with Danny.

"Probably. You just can't show people your 'workshop'." Jazz shrugged.

"Huh." Danny mused and looked at Sam's pendent. "I like that idea." He looked away from Sam and to his sister giving her a smile. He lifted his hand and used his ice powers to create a small version of a book.

"Danny!" Jazz gasped as he placed the ice into her hand. "It's beautiful. Thank you." She reached over and hugged him.

Danny chuckled, "Your welcome."

"Okay, that's two people. I want one now!" Tucker complained around a mouth full of pizza.

The others rolled their eyes, "And what would you like?" Danny asked, grabbing another piece of pizza.

"I don't know. Something cool." He shrugged and bit off another piece of his pizza.

Danny chuckled and moved his hands around. They all looked over at him and Sam and Jazz laughed loudly when they saw that Danny had created a mini-Tucker with the words 'I'm Tucker Foley. That's TF for Too Fine.'

"I like it!" Tucker got up from the floor and grabbed the figure out of Danny's hands, "Thanks man. And you two shut-up it's awesome."

"Yeah, Tuck. Whatever you say." Sam and Jazz shared a smile as Tucker looked it over.

They spent the rest of the time finishing their dinner and talking about the little things that happened over the weeks that Jazz hadn't been home. When they were all finally full they cleaned up their mess and decided to head to bed early considering their busy days – especially Danny's. The boys changed their clothes in the bathroom because Danny really didn't want to see his sister naked and wasn't going to let Tucker stay in there as well; while Sam and Jazz changed in Jazz's room and came back in when Sam gave them the 'okay'.

The trio was laid out on the floor with Sam between Tucker and Danny each on their own pillow that they remembered to bring along with their own blankets. When they fell asleep Danny and Sam laid facing the other and Tucker rolled with his back facing them – mainly to give them a sense of privacy. He wanted to have as much time together because they would barely get these chances. Unsurprisingly it was quite easy for everyone to fall asleep quickly.

Though for two of them the peacefulness didn't last long.

Sam and Danny were sharing a dream again. They weren't sure who started it, but it didn't matter because they were both in it.

It had started with Dan.

They had been back in Amity Park in their respective spots during the big showdown with Dan. Nothing irregular happened within the dream, at least anything that they weren't expecting. But as the explosion erupted around Sam and Danny screamed out for them they both felt as if the dream tipped on its side and they stood together in the middle of Amity Park. People ran around them, screaming out in terror but they couldn't place where the fear was coming from.

"We're dreaming." Sam said looking at Danny who nodded in agreement having finally realized that they were sharing a dream.

"Do you know what's going on?" Danny asked as the crowd continued to part around him, faces blurring.

"No, idea. Never had a dream start like this. Not one that I remember at least." She answered.

They both moved forward, the crowd continued to part around them. After they walked ten paces they saw a green ecto-blast hit the side of a building, denting the structure, followed by a crazy laugh that made them both stop in their tracks.

Plasmius appeared in front of them and the crowd disappeared. He threw a pink ecto-blast towards someone that Danny and Sam couldn't see behind a building. Three more people appeared at it shocked both of them. On the street at the base of the stood Valerie in her red huntress outfit fighting Tucker and Sam. Except Sam was different; she wore the green dress from the time she had been taken control of by Undergrowth and the vines protruded from her back as she looked upon Valerie with total green eyes.

"What?" Sam whispered and watched as her and the dream version of Tucker fought off Valerie together. She realized that Tucker didn't seem bothered by the fact that she was like that and wondered what that was about.

"You think you can beat me for this you Fruit Loop?" She heard Danny his voice echoing like it did when he was in his ghost form and turned away from her dream self to look up in the sky where Danny's dream-self appeared along with a dream version of Dani by Danny's side.

Dani still wore the same outfit she typically wore, Danny however wore a long black cape with a white undertone that billowed out behind him, the Crown of Fire glowed ghostly green on his head and the Ring of Rage was secured on his right hand. And finally his eyes glowed an extra bright green as he held a large ball of concentrated ectoplasm in his hand.

"You think you can do better than me?" Dream-Danny fired his ecto-blast followed by Dani's own blast. Both hit Vlad square in the chest, cutting through the shield he put up to protect himself, and knocked him to the ground a few feet from where Danny and Sam stood watching it unfold.

Dream-Danny and Dani descended in their flight, and crossed both of their arms over their chests. "You could never survive this." Dream-Danny spread his arms wide demonstrating the power he now held. "And you won't survive this fight." He glared at Vlad who started pushing himself up, moving as quick as he could away from both Phantom's.

"Please, Daniel. Danielle. I won't… I'll do anything." Vlad pleaded as Dream-Danny and Dani floated above him.

Sam caught red in the corner of her eye and watched as her dream-self hit Valerie hard in the chest and sent her skidding across the pavement, only to stop a foot or so from Vlad. Her dream-self floated next to Tucker as they made their way next to dream-Danny and Dani.

"You both have no reason to be here anymore. You've merely becoming pests in the plan for the bigger picture." Dream-Sam voiced and raised a hand. One of the vine attached to her shot out and wrapped itself around Valerie's neck. Tightening, making her hands come up to grasp the vines.

"You are something to see, Vlad. Begging me for your life. But I've done that too many times with you and I'll return the favor." Danny said. "Dani, if you could join me." He turned to her and created an icicle with a sharp point, Dani created one as well.

Sam turned to her Danny and grabbed his hand. She could see the visible sweat beads on his forehead as he watched the scene; transfixed. "Danny, we have to wake up." She shook his shoulder with her other hand, but he didn't move. His breathing picked up in pace as the dream version of himself and Dani pulled back their arms getting ready to throw their deadly icicles. She ignored her dream-self as she unwrapped the vines from Valerie's neck. She figured that Valerie was dead, but she didn't want to look, she didn't want to be that.

"Danny, you are not that. You won't let that happen. Wake up."

Sam gasped awake, eyes clouded in the darkness of the room, her face pushed not against her pillow but skin. Finally registering where she was, she realized that her head was tucked into Danny's neck, and she had an arm wrapped around him; their legs were a jumbled mess however. But she couldn't dwell on their positions as she felt Danny's breathing increase and comprehended that Danny hadn't followed her out of the nightmare.

"Danny." She whispered and shook his shoulder as she sat up as best as she could with his arms tight around her. "Wake up." She reached for his mind with hers and sent what she hoped were signals to be awake. 'Danny, it's not real. Wake up.' She reached out with her mind and was rewarded with a gasp, a jerk, and his blue eyes flying open.

"Hey, it's okay. Breathe, Danny." She told him reaching up to cup his cheeks and made him look at her in the dark. She knew his eyes could do so better than hers. His hands stayed tight around her body, but she ignored them, making sure to focus on his breathing and keeping quiet since she knew he hated when they all were up and worrying about him.

"Sam… that…I …"

"Shh… breathe, Danny. Like Jazz taught you. In through your nose out through your mouth." She demonstrated once and she felt him try and follow her. "Again, come on." As she tried getting him to breathe her mind was filled with the images of their nightmare and the small bit that she missed where Danny had watched his dream-self and Dani kill Vlad. Followed by the image of Vlad and Valerie lying on the ground, their eyes wide and lifeless. It freaked Sam out but she had to calm Danny down before she could start freaking out too.

It took a few minutes but Danny finally had his breathing back to normal and he buried his face in her neck and moved his hands off her body only to replace them fully with his arms and she was wrapped in a tight yet comforting hug.

"It's not going to happen." She whispered in his ear and ran a hand through his thick locks. "None of that will happen."

"But how do you know?" He sighed against her. "It's not like something similar hasn't happened before."

"Well let's start with some of the basic things." She took a deep breath and saying these allowed as she thought of them would help her own mind about the nightmare. "One: Dani doesn't have ice powers. We know that for a fact because she doesn't have the same core temperature as you or anyone in the Far Frozen. Two: I can't gave ghost powers. So there is no way that I would be showing up and doing… what I did. Three: If we did do those things, Tucker would not be following in our footsteps. He would be putting a stop to us. He would not let us do that again. Four: I do not hate Valerie enough to kill her. In fact I don't hate her, I marginally dislike her. Five: You know that having Vlad suffer alive would be worse for him than actually killing him, therefore in no way would you actually kill him. Six: You would not wear a stupid cape, even if it did look really cool."

She let him take in what she said, following his line of thought making sure it stayed on a steady path. "You're right." She sighed with relief but could feel the next statement before he spoke it aloud. "But we still don't know what will happen if I become the Ghost King. There are too many variables to really know." He pulled his head out from her neck and rested his chin on her shoulder.

She continued to thread her finger through his hair. "True. But you have to trust yourself and us, to know that you won't let that power, that darkness corrupt you. And if it started to, that you would trust me, Tucker and Jazz and Dani to ask for help. We won't leave your side no matter what and we'll be there to remind you of who you are if you need it."

They sat in silence for a few seconds before Danny finally said, "I love you guys, you know that right?"

She chuckled, "Yes. All of us know that. And we love you too, Danny." He turned his head and kissed the side of her neck softly.

They stayed in that position for a while – Sam wasn't quite sure for how long exactly. She sent him calming thoughts trying to get him to go back to sleep. But it seemed to be working more for her than for him. When she practically fell asleep against him Danny moved a little away from her before lying them both back down on their makeshift bed, pulling her on top of him. She cuddled into is chest and Danny situated their blankets to cover them both before she fell asleep to Danny's arms wrapped around her and his cool temperature seeping into her own body.

Danny himself couldn't follow in Sam's sleepy wake. The nightmare kept running through his mind and no matter what he did, those images would flash behind his eye lids each time he closed his eyes.

He sighed ran his hand over his face with the arm that wasn't tucked under Sam. The dream was a piece of everything he feared about becoming the Ghost King. That darkness was still inside of him ever since the encounter with Dan. And sure it had actually been Vlad's ghost half that was evil and corrupted his own ghost half, but that didn't mean he, as himself now, didn't have that darkness. Danny had found out through Clockwork that most ghosts do have a darkness with in them, but it depends on how it manifests – if it does at all.

Ever since then and the fact that he's been through an alternate timeline twice already of him jumping from the path, it made him extremely nervous about the power he had within himself. Now of course if he became the Ghost King he didn't know what would happen. He knew his power would grow immensely and it wasn't the fact that he couldn't control the power – which he knew he could, but that would more than likely raise the darkness in him and make it harder to push down and not succumb to its caresses.

He did not want that to happen.

He didn't want his family to have to pull him back from the ledge.

Danny looked down at Sam who was still curled up on his chest, fingers lightly gripping his shirt. He could see through her mind and tell that she was enjoying a peaceful dream, finally and he was happy that she was able to be so calm and collected when he couldn't be. They fit so well together that way.

He knew he would do anything for her – for each member of his family – but for her especially. Danny pushed a lock of hair back to see her face better. He also knew that he could hold the darkness back better with Sam in his mind again. He sighed and closed his eyes. She was right, he decided. He needed to talk with Jazz about what happened with the Guys in White before talking with her and Tucker; he needed help.

He decided he would talk with Jazz tomorrow and not push it off till Sunday before focusing on Sam's happy dreams and succumbing to sleep once more.

October 4th, 2014

Saturday (Friday Night)

Jazz's Dorm Room

2:30 a.m.

Authors Note:

*BTW: have not looked over this chapter at all! If you spot anything shoot me a PM!

You guys! Apparently I just suck I can't get back on track. So here's what I'm going to do. LISTEN UP IT'S IMPORTANT. I'm changing my update day to Friday's. I've noticed I'm better able to plan the chapter out over the weekends now and write them out during the week. For some reason it's taken me from January to March to figure that out. And I'm sorry.

SO UPDATE DAY IS NOW ON FRIDAY. NOT SUNDAY!

I will not try and get caught up. I'm going to take my time because this is a story that I want to read. That's the whole reason why I started writing this story because no one else was making this story! LOL so if I don't like it and the way it's written then I'm not going to post it because I post this because I want to and not by demands. (sorry I think I ranted slightly. OOPS!)

But you can probably expect the next chapter on Sunday because when I wrote this chapter, ch.27 was actually a part of it, but I didn't like the way it connected so I decided to split it.

Anyway, I hope that you liked this chapter even though it was short!

I'm so happy that everybody loved the whole alternate realities for the whole trio! I was taking a chance with it and you'll see how this ties in later :) but it might not be in this book. Just fair warning.

For the people who forgot, this is going to be a super duper huge story! Just a reminder.

Thank you, thank you, thank you to all of my reviewers! I love you guys so much! The Talent, ShadowDragon357, Snoopykid, Phantom Fire1, SamxDanny, Blue11msu, .23, wolfmoon21, Capitolblonde, Krusher, ShinyMudkipGal, Guest Georgia, CaptainDorito, GlraxaystarfireKatnissbluerose

(Btw if I didn't mention your name (2 of you) it's because your reviews weren't actually reviews and they probably should have been PMs.

*Answers to reviews!:

The Talent: Your welcome! You'll have to wait and see about Tucker's parents. But it won't be in the next 10 chapters if that's what you're looking for.

Phantom Fire1: No.

SamxDanny: I know I loved making the sign! It was one of my favorite parts lol. Thank you for saying that you loved the AU timelines :) I'm so excited that you liked them so much! And evil! Honey the best ones always have a little bad in 'em ;) hahahahahaha I have no idea what they would do without Ida. Probably bust Danny's secret honestly lol

Capitolblonde: Thanks for all three of your reviews! It's nice to know that there's some readers out there that no matter what they review every chapter :)

Krusher: Dude! You made it to chapter 25! I thought you said you weren't going to read past ch.2? lol And I would do what you said in your review but 1) that's too easy. And 2) I want them to have a more realistic approach. But you're slightly heading in the right direction. Slightly.

ShinyMudkipGal: it's okay that you didn't review ch.24! I love hearing from you whenever you can :) that sucks about your caps lock, hope it gets fixed soon!

Guest Georgia: Wow! I'm so happy that you love the story so far!

GlraxaystarfireKatnissbluerose: Hi! Just wanted to say I sent you a PM and if you could please go check it out that would be awesome :)